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Thursday, February 22, 2018

Our Spainiversary {Year 2}

Well, it doesn't seem real but we have been in Spain TWO years today. And I am not even sure where to begin this post either... So just bear with my ramblings!

First, I think it is crazy that our little lady has lived more of her life outside the states than she did in the states so far -- girlfriend is going to have killer culture shock when we move back! And her Spanish language abilities are just something else. There are some things that she doesn't even know the English word for (oops!) or she just simply calls many things by the Spanish word. But my personal favorite is hearing her little voice speak Spanish, I find it to be the cutest thing in the whole wide world :)

Second, I feel like we really settled in this year -- while we didn't travel as much (not nearly as many day trips), we settled in and found our grove. We spent more time with our friends -- doing various group outings or get togethers, rather than day tripping on the weekends. We spent time exploring our town -- finding new places to eat and drink or hang out. And our Peanut has found her groove at school -- she loves her teacher and friends (I love seeing her so happy and learning).

Most importantly, we got more comfortable with living in a foreign country -- especially since many of our tasks invovle speaking Spanish and doing things the Spanish way. We've found a Spanish dentist and nativagated getting our cars fixed (our dentist does speak English, the mechanic speaks no English). We've learned a lot of about our Spanish house this year with all of our issues (it sure has made us laugh). And while my Spanish is not perfect nor am I even close to being fluent, I feel more confident in speaking and stumbling my way through.

And while I feel like we didn't travel as much this past year, we still did some traveling and it was wonderful to discover new and amazing parts of this world. We took an unforgetable trip with friends to the Canary Islands -- seriously, this trip was so much fun! We went to southern France (Lyon, Marseille, and Provence) where we explored so much and saw so much and made us love France that much more! Then finally, Trevor and I took such a wonderful trip without our little lady to Copenhagen + Stockholm -- it was awesome!

Our first year was all about exploring, learning... this year was about getting comfortable. I have more confidence in doing things around town (shopping, talking to people, taking care of business type stuff). I have found that we are accepting and appreciating the Spanish way better. We have come to accept that some things move faster but that others move much slower. Overall, it is a much slower pace of life here and it does me good -- even if it drives me nuts at times.

But it all comes down to one thing -- we absolutely love living in Spain and are still so thankful we have this opportunity to live here. We can't wait to see what this next year brings!!